Biden Pushed for Tougher Action on Russian in East Europe

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Two Baltic leaders echoed calls
from Poland and Estonia for a more aggressive U.S. stance toward
Russia, as Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up a two-day trip to
countries on the front line of Ukrainian turmoil.

Biden met today in Lithuania with Latvian President Andris
Berzins and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite during a
visit aimed at assuring North Atlantic Treaty Organization
allies that the U.S. will support them against any attempt by
Russia to encroach on their territory. Biden returns to
Washington later today.

“I see it as a threat not only to Ukraine but also to the
entire international community” that can ’’undermine postwar
architecture,’’ Grybauskaite told reporters today in Vilnius,
the Lithuanian capital.

She said she told Biden Russian actions in Crimea are a
“direct threat” to the region.

“There are those who say that this action shows the old
rules still apply,” Biden said. “But Russia cannot escape the
fact that the world is changing and rejecting outright their
behavior.”

Biden said that there will be economic consequences for
nations that engage in “naked aggression.”

NATO Meeting

Biden said U.S. President Barack Obama will use the NATO
summit to reach concrete commitments. While each of the leaders
Biden met with during his trip embraced the U.S. pledge, all
urged more action by the U.S., NATO and Europe.

Latvia’s Berzins told reporters that “Ukraine must be
helped immediately politically and economically,” the latter in
terms of energy security and prices. He said that the
construction of a pipeline linking gas from Poland to the
Baltics should be accelerated.

“It’s more important today than ever that friends stand
with one another and be unequivocal about it,” Biden said after
a meeting yesterday with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in
Warsaw. “That’s why I’m here.”

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who Biden also met
with in Warsaw, said Russia’s moves to absorb Ukraine’s Crimean
peninsula “are forcing us to reassess” NATO’s post-Cold War
mentality of “a Europe that no longer has any threats.”

Such views no longer apply, Ilves said. “The East-West
relationship needs to be put on a new standing. We and NATO must
draw our conclusions from Russia’s behavior.”

Military Cooperation

Tusk called for tighter military cooperation and said
Russia’s aggression goes beyond the implications for Ukraine and
represents “a challenge for the whole free world.”

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said Russia’s higher
defense spending in recent years falls into the category of
“lesson learned.” That prompted Biden to push back: “We have
a budget larger than the next 10 nations in the world combined,
so don’t worry about where we are: Number One,” he said.

Poland and Estonia will call for expanded sanctions at the
European Union leaders’ meeting this week, according to an U.S.
administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of
anonymity to discuss private talks.

Biden, 71, said the U.S. is looking at ways to “increase
the pace and scope of our military cooperation” including
rotating U.S. forces to the Baltic region for ground and naval
exercises and training missions. The U.S. also is bolstering
NATO air patrols from bases in Poland and Lithuania.

Raising Tension

The crisis has raised concern in Europe, particularly among
western-leaning nations that once were Soviet satellites.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Lithuania and Poland on
March 4 of training the “extremists” who ousted Kremlin-backed
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled after three
months of anti-government protests.

Biden repeatedly said the U.S. is committed to NATO’s
Article 5, which says an attack on an individual member of the
alliance is considered an attack on all member nations.

The vice president didn’t make any commitments about using
U.S. energy policy to help lessen dependence on Russia, while
encouraging European nations including Poland to aid Ukraine.

In the coming weeks, the U.S. will discuss with European
partners ways to diversify their energy sources to reduce
dependence on Russia. Biden said he and Tusk talked about steps
Poland is taking to reverse natural gas flows in some pipelines
and help neighboring Ukraine access additional gas. Biden and
Tusk also discussed trans-Atlantic trade negotiations.

‘Land Grab’

Biden called Russia’s move into Crimea “nothing more than
a land grab.”

“The world has seen through Russia’s actions and has
rejected the flawed logic behind those actions,” he said in the
first public remarks by a U.S. official after Putin told
lawmakers in Moscow that Crimea is an “inalienable” part of
Russia.

Obama has joined with EU leaders to slap sanctions on
Russian officials and Putin allies. Putin responded by
recognizing Crimea as a sovereign state, following a March 16
referendum on the Black Sea peninsula on joining Russia. The
U.S. and EU regard the vote as illegitimate.

In a further show of unity, Obama yesterday invited the
heads of state from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and
the U.K., as well as the European Union, to a meeting of G-7
nations on March 24 on the sidelines of a Nuclear Security
Summit in The Hague planned March 24-25. G-7 nations had earlier
suspended preparations for the G-8 Summit in Sochi, Russia, in
June.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Margaret Talev in Vilnius, Lithuania, at
mtalev@bloomberg.net